Pages

Monday, December 16, 2013

Game Plan

Kivra’s demons were wisely wary of attacking the ruler of
Hell, so they approached us with caution.
That gave me a little bit of time to figure out a game plan.

I considered fleeing, but I really needed that army of Pit
Guards. I knew that as long as Kivra had
the power to stand in my way she would.
Which meant that, if Kivra decided to run away, I’d have to chase her
and take her down. This would have to be
a fight to the death. Or maybe a fight
to the incapacitation. I wasn’t really
sure if I could kill Kivra.

My best bet for killing her was probably to telefrag
her. If I could land a teleportation
jump right in her center, maybe I could blow her into a million pieces and
actually be rid of her. But I also had
to contend with the backup she’d brought.
If I went off on a one-on-one fight with Kivra, that left Jaelin on her
own against twelve demons who were all at least twice her size. But if I landed a direct telefrag on Kivra
right away, maybe I could call them off.

Some of the demons were peeling off from the group to circle
around behind us. I decided that the
time for action was about thirty seconds ago, but that acting now was still
better than waiting any longer. I
glanced over toward Kivra, focused, and jumped.

I appeared exactly where I’d wanted to, but Kivra had
moved. I felt my wrist materialize
halfway up her forearm, but the rest of me was in its own space. As her severed hand fell to the ground, she
let out an agonized shriek that made every single one of her goons’ heads snap
in our direction.

Kivra’s reflexes were good—less than a second after I’d
appeared and removed her left hand, her right hand was swinging toward my face,
claws forward. I ducked and rolled out
of the way, but by the time I got to my feet, ten of her demons had teleported
over to protect their master.